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Oracle: SQL statement ALTER SYSTEM

alter system:
alter system switch logfile;
alter system suspend | resume;
alter system register;
alter system reset …
alter system relocate client …
alter system cancel sql terminates an SQL statement being executed.
alter system cancel sql 'sid serial';
alter system cancel sql 'sid serial@instance_id';
alter system cancel sql 'sid serial sql_id';
alter system dump datafile …;
alter system dump logfile …
alter system dump redo dba min … … dba max … … con_id …; 
alter system dump undo_header 'segment_name';

set events

Starting with Oracle 11g, setting an event systemwide affects all connected sessions, not only the new ones.
alter system set events '…';
For example: the following command causes a the systemstate to be dumped when an ORA-00054 error is thrown:
alter system set events '54 trace name systemstate level 258';

Modify init parameter

alter system set init-parameter-name = new-value;
alter system set init-parameter-name = new-value scope = …;
alter system set init-parameter-name = new-value comment = '…';
alter system set init-parameter-name = new-value sid = '…';
alter system set init-parameter-name = new-value container = …;
Restore init-parameter to default value:
alter system reset init-parameter-name;
scope is one of
sid is either the value of a sid or *.
container is one of

Flush …

alter system flush shared_pool;
alter system flush global context;
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush flash_cache;
alter system flush redo to … …;
alter system flush passwordfile_metadata_cache;

Terminating sessions

Sessions can be ended with the following statements:
alter system disconnect session 'sid,serial'                   [ immediate | noreplay ];
alter system disconnect session 'sid,serial' post_transaction  [ immediate | noreplay ];
alter system kill       session 'sid,serial'                   [ immediate | noreplay ];
alter system kill       session 'sid,serial,@instance_id'      [ immediate | noreplay ];
23c also comes with the force option to terminate a session more forcefully than using immediately (i. e. not waiting for transactions to be rolled back, session locks to be released and the session state to be recovered):
alter system kill       session 'sid,serial'                     force;
The values for sid and serial can be found in v$session
As per MOS Note 1020720.102 (ALTER SYSTEM KILL Session Marked for Killed Forever), a killed session waits for for a SQLNet message from client to which it can respond with ORA-00028: your session has been killed. Only when this message is received, PMON will take ownership of the process and clean up any resources allocated by that process.
See also

X$KZVDVCLAUSE

select *
from
   x$kzvdvclause
order by
   clause_name,
   parameter_name;
ADG_REDIRECT_DML
ADG_REDIRECT_PLSQL
ADVISE
AFFINITY
ARCHIVE LOG ALL
ARCHIVE LOG CHANGE
ARCHIVE LOG CURRENT
ARCHIVE LOG GROUP
ARCHIVE LOG LOGFILE
ARCHIVE LOG NEXT
ARCHIVE LOG SEQUENCE
CHECK DATAFILES
CHECKPOINT
CLOSE DATABASE LINK
COMMIT IN PROCEDURE
COPY LOGFILE
DISTRIBUTED RECOVERY
DUMP DATAFILE
DUMP FLASHBACK
DUMP LOGFILE
DUMP REDO
DUMP TEMPFILE
DUMP UNDO
END SESSION DISCONNECT SESSION
END SESSION KILL SESSION
EXCLUSIVE INSTANCE
FLUSH BUFFER_CACHE
FLUSH FLASH_CACHE
FLUSH GLOBAL CONTEXT
FLUSH PASSWORDFILE_METADATA_CACHE
FLUSH REDO
FLUSH SHARED_POOL
GUARD
ILM ROW ACCESS TRACKING
ILM ROW MODIFICATION TRACKING
LOGICAL REPLICATION
PARALLEL DDL
PARALLEL DML
PARALLEL QUERY
QUIESCE QUIESCE RESTRICTED
QUIESCE UNQUIESCE
REFRESH LDAP_REGISTRATION
REGISTER
RESET
RESUMABLE
RESUME
SECURITY RESTRICTED SESSION
SECURITY SET ENCRYPTION KEY
SECURITY SET ENCRYPTION WALLET
SET APPLICATION ACTION
SET APPLICATION MODULE
SET CONSTRAINTS
SET CONTAINER
SET CURRENT_SCHEMA
SET EDITION
SET ERROR_ON_OVERLAP_TIME
SET EVENTS
SET FLAGGER
SET GLOBAL_TOPIC_ENABLED
SET ILM VISIBILITY
SET INSTANCE
SET ISOLATION_LEVEL
SET LDAP_REGISTRATION_ENABLED
SET LDAP_REG_SYNC_INTERVAL
SET LOG_READ_ONLY_VIOLATIONS
SET SINGLETASK DEBUG
SET SQL_TRANSLATION_PROFILE
SET STANDBY_MAX_DATA_DELAY
SET TIME_ZONE
SET USE_PRIVATE_OUTLINES
SET USE_STORED_OUTLINES
SET
SHARD DDL
SHARD OPERATIONS
SHUTDOWN
SUSPEND
SWITCH LOGFILE
SYNC WITH PRIMARY
TX RECOVERY

See also

alter system is not counted as a DDL statements statement although it starts with alter, rather, it is a session and system control statement.
Compare alter system with alter database and alter session.

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